Seven Questions Meme
Seven questions set to me by Joe Rooney, The Lord Of Larp(tm). Allegedly if you comment I have to offer up seven of my own to you. I have a slight cold so, if I do that thing, they may lack imagination.
1. You are a ginormous keener. What keeps you motivated?
Oh I am as prone to keen-spikes and keen-fail as anyone. I’m not sure there’s a single motivating factor as such but one of the biggest is Other People and Ideas.
A lot of keen comes from people responding to ideas in an excited manner - or imagining how they will react when something (whether pun, scheme or other ‘thing’) happens. I am sure you get something similar from Insurrection where you come up with a set-piece and the Design Team get frothy about it as well as imagining how players will react.
The ideas part is also important in this, because if Other People are the engine, Ideas are the fuel. Audacious ideas make excellent fuel. Sadly, most of my ideas tend to be around frivolous things but then there tend to be fewer obstacles, naysayers and real-life consequences in worlds of fantasy (such as my recent Empire Design work).
Conversely, nothing kills keen like negativity. Unfortunately, as you cannot please all the people all the time (due to few mortal endeavours being perfect and tastes varying), this is a key driver why I am stepped away from event organisation and turned down being an LT NPC on three-or-four occasions. These days I prefer to be a player and enjoy making trouble IC where my feeling of responsibility to others is greatly diminished whereas the keenjoy of Things Happening is still in effect. Also event organisation eats time like nothing else.
All of which does not bode well when Empire goes live and (inevitable) negative reactions to the Imperial Religion that I have been working on roll in, but for now I have a lot of keen around it.
Overall, sounds a lot like Positive and Negative Energy, doesn’t it?
Displacement activity from other things I should be also motivates too.
2. I remember you mentioning a few times that fatherhood had changed your ability to enjoy certain films. What else has it changed about you (rather than your circumstances)?
The key one is perception - which is linked to the film issue. A classic example is the Jamie Bulger murder. My response to that has definitely changed post-parenting. Before, it was a tragedy. Now, I can project the face of toddlers I know onto the situation and it gets a much much stronger reaction.
Equally, I am more aware of issues around children’s play areas (and the care and vandalism of the same), and wider society issues that I - as an adult - am able to ignore but which I am more aware of because they may affect my child. For example, there was no Facebook and cyber-bullying when I was at school, but I have to consider how to prepare my children for that and whatever other developments come along.
3. What's your favourite pastime outside of The Hobby?
Doing things with my children. Its great. I get to go to soft play zones, fun swimming pools with slides and I am rediscovering the joys of libraries again.
4. What's the weirdest OOC realisation you've ever had whilst roleplaying?
It was playing a non-human at Maelstrom and having an IC conversation with someone who was familiar and acquainted with Daniel as a player, and having the OOC realisation that they had no idea that the character they were talking to was played by me. Weirder still was that the fact that this has happened more than once.
5. Which one historical event do you wish you had been present at?
I’ll go with the Big Bang partly because it means I could witness what was there before and the biggest explosion in all history.
If its one that I am expected to survive by dint of atmosphere, gravity and so forth, then… hmm… I’m not a historical tourist by nature. I don’t need to be at the Berlin Wall’s fall to enjoy the idea it came down. Its far more tempting to pick a disaster that would have been easily averted by dint of advance warning (e.g. tell the Titanic to adjust course) albeit that sometimes the only way humanity learns is from tragic failure.
6. Which one political issue stirred you most in the last twelve months?
It was probably university tuition fees, because that is something I need to consider for my children. I’m keen for them not to be landed in piles of debt they have to spend part of their working life clawing their way out of. We don't have £20,000 to spare now and who can say what it will cost in 15 years time? (Of course we also have record levels of graduate unemployment which is equally a pain)
7. What do you use for inspiration when writing?
I don't write that much these days. There’s not much time for it. I mostly write tenders and the inspiration for that is past tender submissions we have written and good case studies when they arise. Any fiction I write tends to be an extension of my hobby (such as the news reports I wrote for Aberrant RPG) wherein the inspiration is the froth and setting for the froth.